Origin
The Ed Litton plagiarism scandal has revealed just how vast and industrialized sermons are. A company by the name of Docent Research Group was identified to being a kingpin of (errant) teaching in the church. Predictably such a centralization of church material was ripe for corruption and Docent Research Group has a Social Justice Gospel agenda. This was exposed in the initial Protestia article on the subject. This article continues this coverage by exposing a prominent Southern Baptist church using Docent Research Group. This information was found researching the employees of Docent Research Group. An employee by the name of Greg Lamb mentioned multiple clients he worked with as a “Solo Researcher” at Docent. There is considerable existing evidence that suggesting that Docent Research Group writes sermons, and Greg Lamb adds to this account.
Abstract
Redeemer Fellowship KC is a multicampus megachurch in Kansas City, Missouri. It is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention and is an Acts 29 church. Redeemer Fellowship has been using Docent Research Group to prepare sermons since at least February of 2016. Redeemer Fellowship KC is also a woke church, that has been promoting Critical Race Theory, political leftism, and certain aspects of the Revoice Movement since at least 2017. It is unclear whether there exists a causal relationship between Redeemer Fellowship’s apostasy and Docent Research Group.
Greg Lamb
Greg Lamb was the employee or contractor of Docent Research Group. He is the source for the Redeemer Fellowship being a Docent client. He claims that “In February 2016, I began working as a contract researcher for Docent Research Group, an Austin-based, Christian, non-profit organization, where I worked on research and sermon briefs for Pastor Kevin Cawley of Redeemer Fellowship in Kansas City, MO (http://www.redeemerkansascity.org)… In all these roles, I essentially serve as an extension to the preaching ministry of these growing churches through providing research, exegesis, and connective tissue to help bring God’s Word to life and resonate with contemporary culture.” From this we can gather that, at a minimum, Kevin Cawley has been using Docent Research since 2016. It is unknown specifically what Greg Lamb contributed to Redeemer Fellowship KC. Assuming that a sermon brief is an outline of a sermon, the most common understanding of the term, this would indicate that Greg Lamb was writing sermons for Kevin Cawley. Cawley claims that his church has a team approach to sermon preparations in a 2018 sermon on race (see below).
Kevin Cawley
Kevin Cawley is mentioned by name by Greg Lamb. He is still the lead pastor at Redeemer Fellowship KC. Though he does not have the largest online footprint, it is a fair assumption that he embraces Cultural Marxism, from that which is readily available. This will be made more evident in the church materials (See below).
Brian Key
Brian Key is a woke pastor. Brian Key is a Pastor/Residency Director, meaning he has authority over other pastors. In addition to supporting the teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools, Key is quite supportive of pagan initiatives like the And Campaign. It is fair to venture that Key is more woke than Cawley, the lead pastor.
Woke Church
Redeemer Fellowship KC is undoubtedly a woke church. As early as 2017, they were promoting Critical Race Theory, via racial training. This would be after the start of their client relationship with Docent Research Group. It’s uncertain whether the wokeness of Redeemer Fellowship KC was enabled by Docent. However, Docent Research Group advertises that they write position papers and provide book summaries for pastors so they can focus on exegesis. Much of the material that Redeemer Fellowship promotes could have been influenced by such services.
Critical Race Theory
Redeemer Fellowship actively promotes Critical Race Theory in its material and has since at least early 2018. On a sermon delivered on February 18th, 2018, Kevin Cawley goes on at length to describe his effort to make his church more diverse, employee standpoint epistemology. He also shares that Brian Key lets him know that he can’t share certain truth because he’s white. Cawley also indicates that his church has committed the sin of partiality in hiring practices in pursuing his goal. In the resources on this sermon, Redeemer Fellowship promotes much woke material.
Democrat Politics
During the same sermon series in which Critical Race Theory is taught, material crafted by leftist political activists was promoted to the congregation. This includes material from Michael Wear, a founder of the And Campaign and former Obama campaign staffer. This also includes Russell Moore, the former head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and Justin Giboney, another founder of the And Campaign. In addition to promoting leftist operatives, Redeemer Fellowship also views immigration as a life issue alongside abortion.
Homosexuality
Although this church has not deviated on it position on homosexuality, Redeemer Fellowship KC and the Southern Baptist Convention as a whole are on the onset of embracing the Revoice movement, which embraces the identity of a “gay Christian” and undermines Biblical repentance. This is evident in promoting material by suspect authors and speakers including Nate Collins, Jackie Hill Perry, Sam Allberry, and Rosaria Butterfield, Wesley Hill, and Beth Felker Jones. Wesley Hill’s book promotes identifying as a “gay Christian.”
Conclusion
The apostasy of Redeemer Fellowship KC is evident and only bound to worsen as it further embraces Cultural Marxism. While it is unclear whether they are still a client of Docent Research Group, they were a client during a particularly pivotal time when Redeemer Fellowship KC was forwarding the Social Justice Gospel.
Docent Research Group is a kingpin in the downgrade of Evangelicalism. They and those who hire them will be exposed.
6 Responses
So glad I’m not on twitter. Tweets from “Christians” indistinguishable from any leftist (they’ve long since stopped being liberals). Talk radio, nationalism, and Trump. Heavens no! Are these really the great dangers to the church, or to MSNBC? Ugh…
I’m not a Trumper, a nationalist (by the lefts definition), and I don’t even have cable. Luckily I’m on the lookout for sin, not some political party’s boogeymen.
I think docent group has figured out how take candy from babies!
Thank you so much for this very important and informative information. The enemy is a slithering snake creeping into the church but I have to believe that true blood-bought Jesus followers can discern dark from light. What is scary is that the lies and deception are so crafty and twisted.
I’ve lived in Kansas City now for 33 years. While this megachurch is one of several SBC, Evangelical Free, Alliance, and PCA heavy hitters in the area, a simple drive around town will reveal numerous mini versions of Redeemer Fellowship KC’s business model in strip malls, and abandoned warehouses and factories. But church hopping is a hallmark of evangelicals (read your Barna studies to confirm this), and you’ll see plenty of parishioners from these churches jumping ship to go to the next latest and greatest happy clappy church.
As the third century church father, St Cyprian of Carthage wrote “man cannot have God as his father if he does not have the church as his mother”.
But the evangelicals propensity to open up church after church without ecclesiastical oversight is beyond the pale of understanding, IMO, and thus the dumpster fires you have. Your monkey, your show.
Here is a blog post from a former member of Reedemer: https://elizabeth-behrens.medium.com/our-experience-of-redeemer-fellowship-kansas-city-part-1-30269980f520. It’s fascinating that her problem with Redeemer was that they didn’t do enough to address race, but you claim they promote liberal ideas and CRT….this is why it’s hard to be in church leadership these days in the DIVIDED States of America. No matter what you say, people will direct and dismantle it to label you and make you an enemy.
Since it appears that the Redeemer is running Pastor Kevin Cawley out of town for not being in tune with the times, perhaps it is time to further dissect your piece here and evaluate why this congregation would spew hatred toward him so vehemently if his epistemology is what you have described here..
The woke have a long and well documented history of eating their own. Interestingly enough, both Cawley and Keys are gone from RFKC since the publish of this article, with only Keys getting a ceremonious farewell. Cawley may not have been woke enough or committed some other impropriety in the eyes of his congregation.